Winston Wu currently serves as the Grand Vice President of Planning on the national board of directors of the Chinese American Citizens Alliance. He is active on the Alliance’s national and the Chair of the Los Angeles Lodge’s Education Committee working on various youth programs, including essay contests, art competitions, scholarships, internships, fellowships, youth councils, and youth leadership development programs.

In 1994 and 1995, he was the Alliance Los Angeles Lodge President which led to his current service as Vice President on the two Alliance non-profit boards, the Community Action and the Community Involvement Fund. Winston’s passion is his role as an advisor to the four chapters of the Lodge’s Youth Council in the Greater Los Angeles Area.

Winston is a past president and served almost twenty years as a board member of the Chinatown Public Safety Association. He served as the Vice President of the Chinese American Civil Rights Organization and currently serving on the board of directors for the Chinese American Education Association. Winston has also been active for the political empowerment of Asian Americans, in promoting citizenship, voters’ education, fair reapportionment and immigration legislation. He is a founding member of the Asian Pacific Islanders Police Advisory Committee, advising the Los Angeles Police Commission and a founding member and past chair of the Citizens Advisory Panel to Los Angeles City Attorney James Hahn.

He started his LADWP career as a dam engineer, working on the testing, design and analysis of dams throughout the system. He also worked on the Second Los Angeles Aqueduct and the Los Angeles Aqueduct Filtration Plant. One of his first dam analysis was on the seismic stability of the Lower San Fernando Dam which was determined to have marginal performance when subjected to a major earthquake. Based on the study, the reservoir was reduced to operating at half capacity. That decision proved to be sound when the February 9, 1971 San Fernando Earthquake damaged the upstream slope of the dam with just five feet of freeboard, thus averting a major disaster for the 80,000 residents living downstream. The dams system was tested again by the January 17, 1994 Northridge Earthquake with no major damage.

Winston also worked in water resource planning and as project manager of the Superfund projects in the San Fernando Valley groundwater cleanup. He also led the successful completion of the Los Angeles Water System Data Acquisition and Control for the system operations.

On the side, he was in charge of the Water System engineering recruitment and its Emergency Response Team, as well as the Department’s overall FEMA Liaison after the Northridge Earthquake and oversaw 300 projects in seeking federal funding. He realized recently and is proud that the heads of the three systems at LADWP, Water, Power and Joint, had all worked under his direct supervision at one time in their careers, a scenario that is not likely to repeat.

Winston received his Master of Science Degree in Civil Engineering from the University of Southern California and his Bachelor of Science Degree in Engineering from the University of California Los Angeles.

He is a Licensed Civil Engineer and a Registered Geotechnical Engineer in California and is active in the local American Society of Civil Engineers and served as the first Asian American on the local ASCE Board of Directors for four years.

Retired as a Water Utility Manager in 1998, Winston continues his volunteer work with his many youth programs and with more time as an orchid hobbyist, having been a member of the Cymbidium Society of America for many years. He is married to Purificacion and has a daughter, Elizabeth, who is currently the Vice President of the Alliance Los Angeles Lodge.